[Dork.]

The Balanced Budget Amendment is in the news now. It's a key part of the impasse regarding the debt limit increase - you all know that story. I'd like to consider the BBA on its own merits, because I think there's a ticking time bomb hidden in it.

I've been thinking about the power that codifying the balanced budget into the Constitution can have. Congress has control over both spending and revenue for the Federal government, and they generally deal with them in separate bills. There is currently nothing preventing Congress from spending money it doesn't have, or from reducing taxes without offsetting cuts in spending (or reducing a projected surplus). The Federal budget can be made up of several bills, after all. A responsible congress would make sure that any tax cuts or spending come from money the government is budgeted to have on hand eventually, to make sure the debt doesn't balloon. (How well has that worked for us in the past 11 years?)

If the simplest form of BBA is adopted (that states that government spending can't exceed its revenue), on the surface it appears that it would impose definite limits on Congress. But, it won't, really, since revenue and spending are generally dealt with separately. There would still be nothing that prevents Congress from passing individual bills to spend money or reduce taxes without the cash on hand. But, if they do, and they don't balance it in that fiscal year, they've just handed the President (who gets to actually spend the money) a powerful tool to simply reject the spending or tax cuts he doesn't like. After all, the BBA states that the budget must be balanced: if Congress creates a budget that is imbalanced (like, say, passing a tax cut but neglecting to pass accompanying legislation to pay for it), the President would be bound by the Constitution to balance it. And if congress is unable to give him guidance how to do it, he should (and would) use his discretion.

Furthermore, the BBA would make the budgeting process intensely focused on the current fiscal year: supply-siders who justify tax cuts by claiming revenue increases down the road (as well as Progressives who want to stimulate down economies) would be out of luck, because the budget would be required to be balanced for the current fiscal year, and any spending or tax cut would need to be funded imediately.

In short, passing the BBA would give the President one huge line-item veto to reject anything -- spending or revenue related -- that leads to an imbalance in that fiscal year. It's basically a way to make sure the Bush tax cuts never happen again. And if a multi-year program is passed with budget projections that turn out to be flawed, the Congress either has to fix it immediately or the President can unilaterally alter it to balance the budget.

Do we really want to give that much power to the President, no matter which party he's from?

[finboy]

Originally Posted by Dork. 

Do we really want to give that much power to the President, no matter which party he's from?

Most of the states have Constitutional requirements for a balanced budget, and it doesn't happen like that. I'm not sure that it would happen like that for the federal government either, so I don't think it's a consideration.

I also don't think that requiring a balance budget opens the US Constitution up to wide debate, as has been FUD'ed around as well.

[Dork.]

But what happens when the Congress passes a series of budget bills that, taken together, don't balance? Or what happens when receipts for a given year are less than anticipated, and Congress doesn't react in time? Doesn't the President get to set priorities on what gets spent in that case? Can the President selectively not implement a tax cut in order to make the budget balance?

[finboy]

Originally Posted by Dork. 

But what happens when the Congress passes a series of budget bills that, taken together, don't balance? Or what happens when receipts for a given year are less than anticipated, and Congress doesn't react in time? Doesn't the President get to set priorities on what gets spent in that case? Can the President selectively not implement a tax cut in order to make the budget balance?

Don't know. I guess there's tons of precedent though in the states. None of the states have gone bankrupt yet. Yet.

[Waragainstsleep]

Maybe the budget bills should be presented like MX records or lines of old code:

10 Pay the rent
20 Pay the car HP
30 Pay the phone bill
40 Pay the credit card bill

Then the next one can be:

31 Pay the internet bill
32 Pay the Netflix bill

And so on...